Literary News

[New Devilry]

You seem to be applying Occam's Razor here, which is interesting because it was once thought that the most plausible explanation in many cases would be the existence of a creator, which just goes toward showing that what 'makes sense' differs per epoch, pointing towards qcrisp's previous comment about temperament and character.

I'm not sure what your point is here. Are you familiar with the god of the gaps fallacy?

Have you read the Qur'an? Very thin on descriptive prose, that book. If anything, it functions much in the way that psychedelics do in your description - helping a person explore their consciousness.

I don't have much experience reading the Quran, no, but I did take a couple courses on Islamic philosophy in college. I thought al-Razi was rad, and Ghazali a tragedy for Islamic civilization.

Is the necessity of a self-evident solution self-evident?

I don't believe that solutions should be self-evident, but some of Justin's statements were presented as if they were self-evident and uncontroversial when they were not so.

Might it not also be said of Science that it has 'pretty much nothing to say about the nature of reality other than what they have to say about human beings, the way our brains work, and the way we like to search for knowledge and meaning. '?

Science has plenty to say about the universe apart from human beings.

I'm not going to get into defending monotheism or any kind of organized religion, I'll just say that the vast majority of the human race takes "divine revelations" (or at least seemingly non-repeatable events of an unusual nature) to be worthy of at least some consideration.

This is an argument from popularity, and it isn't the first time it's appeared in this thread. It's fallacious.

As Matt Cardin pointed out:

"He suggests that the very essence of what has been termed the paranormal is this synchronistic breach of the barrier between subjectivity and objectivity. If there's anything to this, then such experiences, perceptions, events, encounters, would categorically elude customary empirical investigation along scientific lines, since they would generally take the form of singular "one-off" events that cannot be tested or replicated."

I'm not sure what "synchronistic breach of the barrier between subjectivity and objectivity" is supposed to mean, but I repeat: if you can't falsify a claim, then it's indistinguishable from fiction.

But psychedelics and the occult are things we can very much test out for ourselves in the here and now.

Such as?

Not arbitrary at all.

It's arbitrary because you're setting up requirements based on your own personal experience. People have described similar experiences that were achieved through different means—hunger, sleep deprivation, isolation, meditation, and so on. Not to mention different combinations of drugs than what you describe. Why is your experience more authentic?

This is an important question that you have yet to address.

Scientific controls along the lines of the Strassman experiments would be good...we need to get Harris on 1000 micrograms of acid and then hit him with high amounts of intravenous DMT...would repeat this for maybe two or three months until we're sure Harris has actually "gotten through."

What you really mean is "until we're sure Harris thinks he has 'gotten through.'" You can't know anything more than that.

This is related to my question above regarding the authenticity of your experience versus the inauthenticity of others': how do you tell the difference between (A) merely believing you've gotten through and (B) actually having gotten through?

 

[Ibrahim]

You seem to be applying Occam's Razor here, which is interesting because it was once thought that the most plausible explanation in many cases would be the existence of a creator, which just goes toward showing that what 'makes sense' differs per epoch, pointing towards qcrisp's previous comment about temperament and character.

I'm not sure what your point is here. Are you familiar with the god of the gaps fallacy?

Since you do not mention what it is that makes you unsure of my point, i hope this gives some direction: you do, i suppose, agree that it is Occam's Razor you applied there? ( He never phrased it thus but, you know, "the least complicated solution will be the most probable"&c ) Well, William of Ockham was a theologian and used it in favour of, not against, a theistic explanation ( which was then considered to be the simple, unadorned, and least far-fetched hypothesis ).
The god of the gap fallacy has nothing to do with it; in fact, i agree that it won't do to seek material scientific proof of God's existence. If his existence must be argued, beside being believed, then i'd prefer the path of logic.

"I don't have much experience reading the Quran, no, but I did take a couple courses on Islamic philosophy in college. I thought al-Razi was rad, and Ghazali a tragedy for Islamic civilization."

I am really, honestly curious what you have been told about Al-Ghazali to think him a tragedy for Islamic civilization; i hope you'll find time to answer that question. I am asking sincerely, without quarrelsome intention.

 

[qcrisp]

Complete materialism has an unexpected logical consequence, of course. The moment we say that some things are real and some are not, we are becoming dualist, and privileging one half of the dualism over the other. If there is only matter, on the other hand, that is a monist universe and we can't logically say that an imaginary unicorn, for instance, is not real, since mind is, by definition, then matter, and we are taking matter to be real. So, oddly enough, complete materialism is very like immaterialism. I am not entirely convinced they are distinguishable in the end.

Most materialists, however (all those that I have encountered), are accidentally slipping dualism in by claiming that there is something that is 'not real' that we nonetheless experience.

 

[New Devilry]

Since you do not mention what it is that makes you unsure of my point, i hope this gives some direction: you do, i suppose, agree that it is Occam's Razor you applied there? ( He never phrased it thus but, you know, "the least complicated solution will be the most probable"&c ) Well, William of Ockham was a theologian and used it in favour of, not against, a theistic explanation ( which was then considered to be the simple, unadorned, and least far-fetched hypothesis ).

The god of the gap fallacy has nothing to do with it; in fact, i agree that it won't do to seek material scientific proof of God's existence. If his existence must be argued, beside being believed, then i'd prefer the path of logic.

"Least complicated solution" has a very specific meaning as stated by Occam's Razor—it's the solution that requires the fewest assumptions (in other words, unproven conclusions) in order for it to be true. The solution also has to be predictive and it has to be falsifiable.

This is a great example from Rational Wiki:

...one must carefully (and honestly) separate all assumptions being made...a simple-minded evaluation would say "my television functions because of electricity" is as "simple" as "my television functions because of Martians." But to actually evaluate these:

1. My television contains circuitry.
2. My television draws power from the mains which I can show is used by the circuitry.
3. The power from the mains going through the circuitry is what makes the television function.

1. My television contains circuitry.
2. My television draws power from the mains which I can show is used by the circuitry.
3. The power from the mains going through the circuitry is not what makes the television function.
   [*]It functions because of Martians.
   [*]Who are in orbit in their flying saucer.
   [*]Which is invisible and undetectable.
   [*]And powers my television in a way that is also invisible and undetectable.
   [*]And requires no obvious additional components in my television.

It should now be clear which of these would actually be regarded as containing the least number of additional terms. Also, the first hypothesis has predictive power: if you unplug the television from the mains, it ceases to function.

If Ockham used the law of parsimony to prove the existence of God, then he failed his own test somewhere along the way. Somehow I think the principle has been refined since then? "God did it" seems like a simple explanation, but it raises more questions than it answers. The god of the gaps fallacy applies, because throughout history, people have invoked God when they reached the limits of their knowledge.

I am really, honestly curious what you have been told about Al-Ghazali to think him a tragedy for Islamic civilization; i hope you'll find time to answer that question. I am asking sincerely, without quarrelsome intention.

My understanding—and this may be overly simplistic—is that al-Ghazali is largely responsible for the Islamic world's scientific decline. Happy to be disabused of that notion if it isn't correct.

 

[qcrisp]

The god of the gaps fallacy applies, because throughout history, people have invoked God when they reached the limits of their knowledge.

Whereas now they reach the limits of their knowledge and invoke 'brute fact'.

 

[New Devilry]

The god of the gaps fallacy applies, because throughout history, people have invoked God when they reached the limits of their knowledge.

Whereas now they reach the limits of their knowledge and invoke 'brute fact'.

No, they say, "We haven't figured out that part yet."

 

[qcrisp]

The god of the gaps fallacy applies, because throughout history, people have invoked God when they reached the limits of their knowledge.

Whereas now they reach the limits of their knowledge and invoke 'brute fact'.

No, they say, "We haven't figured out that part yet."

This is the cue for posting Bertrand Russell's classic misunderstanding of the cosmological argument, but I shall do that later, as it's bedtime for me.

 

[Arthur Staaz]

In reflecting on Occam's Razor, it seems that you have to distinguish between its application in logic and its application in science. Logic may require consideration of premises that are not observable. Science, of course, is based completely on observation. It's also important to point out that "predictive power" is not a part of Occam's Razor but a separate principle that makes complete sense in science but might not in the realm of the purely logical.

So, what might Occam's Razor suggest about the origins of the universe?

 

[qcrisp]

The god of the gaps fallacy applies, because throughout history, people have invoked God when they reached the limits of their knowledge.

Whereas now they reach the limits of their knowledge and invoke 'brute fact'.

No, they say, "We haven't figured out that part yet."

In my in-box this morning, I found the following story:

http://dailysciencefiction.com/scie...-dornan-fish/someone-is-wrong-on-the-internet

It chimes in with the fact that I really need to get on with other things, so this - I hope - will be my last post on this thread.

This is the debate between Frederick Coplestone and Bertrand Russell about the existence of God to which I was adverting yesterday:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXPdpEJk78E[/ame]

It's quite long and might not be of interest, but I'm putting it here because it's an example of what I was talking about.

I made my last two comments because I thought your treatment of Ockham was unjust.

"Somehow I think the principle has been refined since then?"

I don't think merely presuming that someone you haven't read had a bad argument makes a persuasive case.

The 'god of the gaps' thing about 'we just haven't explained it yet' doesn't answer the comment that I made, either, since, even if you explain everything within the natural universe, you haven't explained the existence of the universe itself. This takes us back to the point I made earlier about the question of the reality status of the natural universe. (I would link back to it if I could find it. Edit - Found it: http://www.ligotti.net/showpost.php?p=142514&postcount=136)

I think there's actually a subtlety here that gets overlooked, but a large part of why it gets overlooked is that people aren't interested in it, as your quote from Conan demonstrated and as is also demonstrated by this part of the exchange between Coplestone and Russell:

Copleston: Well if a question for you has no meaning, it's of course very difficult to discuss it, isn't it?
Russell: Yes, It is very difficult. What do you say, shall we pass on to some other issue?
Copleston: Yes!

Well, for now, I shall be following the suit of these two gentlemen.

 

[Ibrahim]

Since you do not mention what it is that makes you unsure of my point, i hope this gives some direction: you do, i suppose, agree that it is Occam's Razor you applied there? ( He never phrased it thus but, you know, "the least complicated solution will be the most probable"&c ) Well, William of Ockham was a theologian and used it in favour of, not against, a theistic explanation ( which was then considered to be the simple, unadorned, and least far-fetched hypothesis ).

The god of the gap fallacy has nothing to do with it; in fact, i agree that it won't do to seek material scientific proof of God's existence. If his existence must be argued, beside being believed, then i'd prefer the path of logic.

"Least complicated solution" has a very specific meaning as stated by Occam's Razor—it's the solution that requires the fewest assumptions (in other words, unproven conclusions) in order for it to be true. The solution also has to be predictive and it has to be falsifiable.

This is a great example from Rational Wiki:

...one must carefully (and honestly) separate all assumptions being made...a simple-minded evaluation would say "my television functions because of electricity" is as "simple" as "my television functions because of Martians." But to actually evaluate these:

1. My television contains circuitry.
2. My television draws power from the mains which I can show is used by the circuitry.
3. The power from the mains going through the circuitry is what makes the television function.

1. My television contains circuitry.
2. My television draws power from the mains which I can show is used by the circuitry.
3. The power from the mains going through the circuitry is not what makes the television function.
   [*]It functions because of Martians.
   [*]Who are in orbit in their flying saucer.
   [*]Which is invisible and undetectable.
   [*]And powers my television in a way that is also invisible and undetectable.
   [*]And requires no obvious additional components in my television.

It should now be clear which of these would actually be regarded as containing the least number of additional terms. Also, the first hypothesis has predictive power: if you unplug the television from the mains, it ceases to function.

If Ockham used the law of parsimony to prove the existence of God, then he failed his own test somewhere along the way. Somehow I think the principle has been refined since then? "God did it" seems like a simple explanation, but it raises more questions than it answers. The god of the gaps fallacy applies, because throughout history, people have invoked God when they reached the limits of their knowledge.

I am really, honestly curious what you have been told about Al-Ghazali to think him a tragedy for Islamic civilization; i hope you'll find time to answer that question. I am asking sincerely, without quarrelsome intention.

My understanding—and this may be overly simplistic—is that al-Ghazali is largely responsible for the Islamic world's scientific decline. Happy to be disabused of that notion if it isn't correct.

It appears to me you have misinterpreted my intention in bringing up Occam. The point was not at all to use the razor in the argument, it was merely to show how what was once considered the least far-fetched hypothesis has shifted along with dominant ideas in society, i.e. how relative any statement about things being 'plausible'or not must be.
I wasn't defending the idea that God is the more plausible solution, but trying to point out that calling something plausible or implausible does not make it so. I thought presenting the changing interpretation of Occam's dictum over the centuries would perhaps be helpful in illustrating that.

Re: Ghazali. Ah, that old idea: that a single book, the Incoherence of the Philosophers, was responsible for the decline of scientific thought across several societies at once? Without getting into much detail i'd say that this notion is as debatable, if not ridiculous, as it is sounds on the surface.
The book in question makes very few statements about science or its application; it is mostly a polemic, grounded in the language of philosphy and logic; Al-Ghazali puts forward no theologic motives for the dismissal of certain philosophers' ideas, but refutes them through their own methods. The book has no formal legal status, it is not a document of jurisprudence. It is an example of learned debate, highly influential to Aquinas and later authors. It's a good book, i'd recommend it, and also Ibn Sina's rebuttal.

As an aside & admonition to caution: I have noticed, from reading their works extensively in some cases, and from reading excerpts in others, that many Orientalist professors seem to follow Bernard Lewis's example in exhibiting a great deal of contempt in the treatment of their own subject.

The great Edward Said's work remains a brilliant corrective of these attitudes.
And to bring it back to literature & hopefully, like qcrisp, to end for now my contribution to this thread: Said's essays on late style are a delight.

 

[Druidic]

Wilhelm Reich understood the connection between fascism and mysticism, Black or Red Fascism. This woman is a good example. Her love of cats was her only redeeming quality.

Savitri Devi: The mystical fascist being resurrected by the alt-right - BBC News

 

[Mr. Veech]

I've reached the conclusion that both traditional theism and naturalism (materialism) are equally ridiculous.

Theism is rich enough, ontologically speaking, to account for all sorts of higher-level phenomena, but it requires a belief in things not seen, things which are downright absurd.

Naturalism is simple enough to satisfy the skeptic, but it's so ontologically limited that it has to perform all sorts of miracles in order to account for things we take for granted, e.g., moral values, aesthetic values, political bodies, scientific theories as "theories," etc.

In theism, the miracles occur from the top. In naturalism, the miracles occur from the bottom. Anyone who is honest will acknowledge that there's very little that's rational about either worldview.

Human reason is simply not equipped to deal with metaphysical questions, an observation which pains me.

 

[Justin Isis]

Human reason is simply not equipped to deal with metaphysical questions, an observation which pains me.

DRUGS AND THE OCCULT BRO DRUGS AND THE OCCULT

 

[Justin Isis]

This is an argument from popularity, and it isn't the first time it's appeared in this thread. It's fallacious.

Making up a set of rules about "logical fallacies" is fun for debate class, but doesn't actually address the raw, often contradictory reality of the ridiculous universe we live in. Something like 70% of the human race is convinced that Jesus Christ was physically resurrected and/or that the angel Gabriel spoke to Mohammed. At the very least it's necessary to pay serious attention to these claims since we're not getting away from them any time soon. And there is no reason to decide out of hand that just because we can't magic up Vishnu in a lab and make him materialize some high quality buttered popcorn, he isn't "real" in some sense. NEITHER does it imply that Hinduism is necessarily "true" in an absolute way, but I don't get the blanket dismissal. The onus is actually on the minority to justify itself to the majority, and only a very small percentage of the human race is on board with the kind of "Christian-morals-but-not-theology-eliminative-'rationalist'-materialism" of the Dawkins/Dennett set.

But psychedelics and the occult are things we can very much test out for ourselves in the here and now.

Such as?

Psychedelics: follow the method I described earlier in the thread. Alternately, push for more funding of Strassman-style experiments with controlled conditions. Last I heard they were working on some kind of controlled intravenous drip that would allow them to maintain a fairly constant concentration of tryptamines in the blood, allowing for long-term immersion in the other universe. I'm excited to see where this ends up.

Occult: join the group of your choice, try out their methods seriously and see what happens.

It's arbitrary because you're setting up requirements based on your own personal experience. People have described similar experiences that were achieved through different means—hunger, sleep deprivation, isolation, meditation, and so on. Not to mention different combinations of drugs than what you describe. Why is your experience more authentic?

I repeat that no one in the West has described anything remotely like high dose tryptamine experiences resulting from isolation or meditation. But those who've experienced high dose tryptamine experiences tend to describe similar things.

If you find a way of entering the tryptamine hyperverse through meditation and fasting, let me know - I'll pay you serious cash.

There have been recorded examples of supposedly-prepared Buddhist monks, Vedantic practitioners and others utterly losing their heads on DMT - turns out all that great meditation training was no preparation at all for direct contact with the other place.

What you really mean is "until we're sure Harris thinks he has 'gotten through.'" You can't know anything more than that.

This is related to my question above regarding the authenticity of your experience versus the inauthenticity of others': how do you tell the difference between (A) merely believing you've gotten through and (B) actually having gotten through?

If someone makes it through, they know they made it through. It's a pretty binary phenomenon, in the same way most people are reasonably certain to know it when they achieve sexual climax or swallow a piece of chocolate.

But I can't get you (or anyone) to understand this without you doing it for yourself.

Here is the most reasonable course of action to take:

Large Group of People Who've Done It: Hey, we found these molecules that seem to allow us to enter a universe with different physics and insane things we can't even describe. It doesn't even take that long in real time, just 15 minutes or so. Should check this out, it legit breaks reality.

You: Sounds like nonsense bro - isn't this similar to some random religious hallucination or just deep meditation or something?

Large Group of People Who've Done It: No it's actually not like that at all. 15 minutes of your life, no reason not to try it.

You: Hm, might as well investigate...

(15 minutes later)

You: .............................wut......

Large Group of People Who've Done It: RIGHT?!

The god of the gaps fallacy applies, because throughout history, people have invoked God when they reached the limits of their knowledge.

Whereas now they reach the limits of their knowledge and invoke 'brute fact'.

No, they say, "We haven't figured out that part yet."

Not everyone has the patience to wait around for mainstream science to give its equivalent of the Nintendo Seal of Quality™ to any particular phenomena or experience.

 

[ToALonelyPeace]

There is a manga with the synopsis similar to Justin Isis' hypothesis:

Ever since the Pharmaceutics Law passed, everyone in the country has unlimited access to a dizzying array of mind and mood-altering drugs. A shot of Slumberine helps you sleep, and any emotion you can imagine is just a pump away. Even vacations can be replaced with shots: take one dose, and your mind is bathed in a relaxing hot springs experience. Amidst all this drug-addled merriment is Kabu, a world-weary twenty-something man, with nothing to do but chase his next big high. But one day, after running out of P, his drug of choice, he experiments with a new super-drug, Ultra Heaven, which completely re-writes his sense of reality and changes his life forever...

I wonder what kind of drugs this author has tried. He even drew a Cthulhu (made of spaghetti?) monster.

 

[Justin Isis]

There is a manga with the synopsis similar to Justin Isis' hypothesis:

lol@「現実よりもリアルな夢」

Yeah I'd say he's blasted.

(^_−)−☆

 

[Coa]

Will Self is touring his new book Phone, you can see it here on youtube:

/watch?v=1v71FoCLfkw and in France: /watch/?v=GwVdCxBXDKY



As always with him, very interesting stuff; this one thing that he mentions about reviews for Phone especially, like this recent article on TLS -

Postmodernism is dead. What comes next? – Alison Gibbons

I mean, okay, in my experience when you see an article that proclaims postmodernism is dead and yada yada, one thing is guaranteed, last paragraph will be routing of incoming literature to some kind of failed-sociologist-wannabe-writer direction. And so it is. That all right I guess; if you simply mean more engaged literature or literature more in tune with it's time, more responsible to 'major concerns' and problems that we are facing today. So what you gonna read or recommend, if that is your goal? Well best choice would be Phone, by aforementioned Self, and book by William Gaddis JR; big, sprawling, serious, engaged, totally open to all challenges of understanding modern life. Those two big data-stream novels are basically naturalism of this day and age.

But, of course, and this is my problem, there is a lot of hypocrisy involved here, Phone and JR are exactly the books that they would reject. Again, this is the case of pushing back novel to 19th century type of writing. We still use that formula as one legit for facing problems and writing engaged fiction, which means to represent reality and some form of struggle you need books that will not be authentic to reality that you are facing and should face, but using old formula of How to face it - what kind of representation is acceptable. Just like in my last two comments, this is the same problem, not of What but of How; How to deal with something, which ready-made solution to use, what is acceptable and what's not - nevermind if it will be effective to cause in any way.

Their ideal would be like simplicity, touch of melodrama, some sentimentality and of course banal lesson from humanism. But there is another level of hypocrisy here: Enter Houellebecq. He serves them exactly what they want, and in the way they want it: mix of capitalism, consumer society, terrorism.... and in the most simple books possible - almost a trolling of the Novel. And then they call him Pamphleteer or Rhetorician. So there you go. Whole situation is not only fatal to let's call it 'cause' but to art of writing itself.

 

[ToALonelyPeace]

Postmodern exits, enters Post-Postmodernism aka the New Sincerity. (sounds like the set up of a joke)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tICiNbukog0

 

[hopfrog]

Night Shade Books has just releas'd ye first of five volumes in their THE COMPLETE TALES OF JULES DE GRANDIN, weird fiction by Seabury Quinn. The book is edited by George Vanderburgh and the late Robert Weinberg. 'Tis a handsome hardcover edition of 494 pages with an excellent jacket illustration by Donato Giancola. Ye tales in this first volume are:
"The Horror on the Links" (Weird Tales, October 1925)
"The Tenants of Broussac" (Weird Tales, December 1925; cover story)
"The Isle of Missing Ships" (Weird Tales, February 1926)
"The Vengeance of India" (Weird Tales, April 1926)
"The Dead Hand" (Weird Tales, May 1926)
"The House of Horror" (Weird Tales, July 1926)
"Ancient Fires" (Weird Tales, September 1926)
"The Great God Pan" (Weird Tales, October 1926)
"The Grinning Mummy" (Weird Tales, December 1926)
"The Man Who Cast No Shadow" (Weird Tales, February 1927; cover story)
"The Blood-Flower" (Weird Tales, March 1927)
"The Veiled Prophetess" (Weird Tales, May 1927)
"The Curse of Everard Maundy" (Weird Tales, July 1927)
"Creeping Shadows" (Weird Tales, August 1927)
"The White Lady of the Orphanage" (Weird Tales, September 1927)
"The Poltergeist" (Weird Tales, October 1927)
"The Gods of East and West" (Weird Tales, January 1928; cover story)
"Mephistopheles and Company, Ltd." (Weird Tales, January 1928)
"The Jewel of Seven Stones" (Weird Tales, April 19280
"The Serpent Women" (Weird Tales, June 1928)
"Body and Soul" (Weird Tales, September 1928)
"Restless Souls" (Weird Tales, October 1928)
"The Chapel of Mystic Horror" (Weird Tales, December 1928)

Great Yuggoth--I've just seen that Volume Two is also available! Hardcover, $34.99.
Stories--all publish'd in Weird Tales:
Introduction by George A. Vanderburgh and Robert E. Weinberg
"Loved by Thousands of Readers": The Popularity of Jules de Grandin, by Stefan Dziemaianowicz
"The Black Master" (January 1929)
"The Devil People" (February 1929)
"The Devil's Rosary" (April 1929)
"The House of Golden Masks" (June 1929)
"The Corpse Master" (July 1929)
"Tresspassing Souls" (September 1929)
"The Silver Countess" (October 1929)
"The House Without a Mirror" (November 1929)
"Children of Ubasti" (December 1929)
"The Curse of the House of Phipps" (January 1930)
"The Drums of Damballah" (March 1930)
"The Dust of Egypt" (April 1920)
"The Brain-Thief" (May 1930)
"The Priestess of the Ivory Feet" (June 1930)
"The Bride of Dewer" (July 1930)
"Daughter of the Moonlight" (August 1930)
"The Druid's Shadow" (October 1930)
"Stealthy Death" (November 1930)
"The Wolf of St. Bonnot" (December 1930)

*whew--my fingers are tired....

 

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Been a while since those Nightshade editions of William Hope Hodgson, Clark Ashton Smith and Manly Wade Wellman. Maybe Nightshade have been doing sets of classic science fiction authors?